Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while • Hacker News Board

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#731

Post by betwixthewires » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

Traster wrote: post #714

NotPavlovsDog wrote: post #669

This is really exciting, feels like open standards, independent internet is going to continue getting extreme motivation to expand and establish, with private "freedom of speech" censorship by for-profit platforms. We're going to see more fragmentation, and growth of closed platforms perceived by users as "slightly less evil" such as telegram vs watsapp. This may also motivate the return to truly open internet ideals…

People need to stop being so lazy and throwing around the word censorship. If a bunch or teenagers come into my coffee shop and start loudly calling each autists and retards I'm going to kick them out. I'm not censoring them by kicking them out.

This is a tired old argument and it isn't convincing or effective. There's a big difference between some kids screaming in your coffee shop and a community on a website supposedly dedicated to free discussion. A more apt comparison would be a group in a corner having a conversation at a rock concert. Suddenly this argument appears less apt.

And while some are screaming for these sites to get shut down over it, most of us aren't. What you see from most of us is recommendation to stop using services that silence you. This is a reasonable response, if someone doesn't like you, go somewhere where they do like you. That's what the comment you're responding to is advocating, embracing and even getting excited about. The internet needs a true public square, not a private entity masquerading as one that for some reason totally unbeknownst to them has to constantly remind everyone that they are not a public square.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#732

Post by ggggtez » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:31 AM UTC

NotPavlovsDog wrote: post #669

This is really exciting, feels like open standards, independent internet is going to continue getting extreme motivation to expand and establish, with private "freedom of speech" censorship by for-profit platforms. We're going to see more fragmentation, and growth of closed platforms perceived by users as "slightly less evil" such as telegram vs watsapp. This may also motivate the return to truly open internet ideals…

I don't know where you even come up with these outdated ideas.

Very few people care about what you are talking about. The subset of people who care are: tech savvy, young, mostly male, and vaguely misanthropic. This demographic is already served in numerous places, and everyone else is rather glad to see these people chased off of platforms they use for sharing videos of dancing and food.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#733

Post by Traster » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:32 AM UTC

staticelf wrote: post #719

Traster wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to stop being so lazy and throwing around the word censorship. If a bunch or teenagers come into my coffee shop and start loudly calling each autists and retards I'm going to kick them out. I'm not censoring them by kicking them out.

It would only be a fair parable if your coffee shop was the only coffeshop in the entire city or that it exists like 1-3 others but you all talk with eachother on the phone and collectively agree to deny those people service.

There are many coffee shops in the city and there are plenty of social media platforms online (Youtube, Facebook, Tiktok, Reddit, Twitter, Whatsapp, Telegram, Twitch, Pinterest, WeChat, Snapchat). Also, there's really no evidence they're coordinating. If the guys I kick out of my coffee shop walk down the road and start shouting Retard at each other in a different coffee shop they're going to get kicked out of that one too. Not because we're in some big cabal to censor these people, but because actually most people have a fairly similar definition of offensive language, and most coffee shop owners know what's going to drive customers away. At no point does that suddenly turn into censorship.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#734

Post by betwixthewires » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

onethought wrote: post #729

_v7gu wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thousands of such online communities, and you only throw out the ones that threaten your hedge fund?

That isn’t what censorship is. Nor is it a violation of free speech. The government didn’t get involved. Private companies and individuals can do what ever they like with their property, no?

Supposedly, until you criticize the idea of taking their money and giving it to everyone who claims to need it more than them.

Arguments like these are all to often made out of convenience, but should be made in good faith and on principle. Do you truly believe in their right to private property?

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#735

Post by jsilence » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

Splatter wrote: post #690

ryanSrich wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the days when you could say some truly deplorable shit online and almost no one would care. People who didn’t want to hear it would ignore or block and move on. Now it seems like so many topics and words are completely off limits. It’s very restrictive and I think it’s making the web a less free, a less open, and a less fun space. It’s extremely hard to exist online when you have not only a raging group of…

This is why I think it's so important that the internet begins moving towards decentralization soon. Much of the censorship and top-down control we're witnessing today will only get worse while there's no bittorrent-like or blockchain-like decentralization.

Ok, but lets not forget how a few actors can spoil a healthy community. Remember Kuro5hin? Very healthy and thriving community destroyed by a handful of stupid trolls.

Have been following one of the decentralized web approaches, don't remember, netsomething dot net, runs in the browser, very nice interface. Started promising until it got swamped with right wing lunatics doing nothing but trolling and spewing antisemitic stuff all over the place. I am not even offended, it is just a waste of my time to wade thru this trash to find some meaningful conversation.

Any unmoderated community is going to attract these lunatics.

The only places where I find meaningful conversation are topic centered Forums. Anything sans topic turns into a burning dumpster when unmoderated. This is humanity. The lunies get their voices amplified and the sane fall silent.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#736

Post by Jonnax » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

Traster wrote: post #714

NotPavlovsDog wrote: post #669

This is really exciting, feels like open standards, independent internet is going to continue getting extreme motivation to expand and establish, with private "freedom of speech" censorship by for-profit platforms. We're going to see more fragmentation, and growth of closed platforms perceived by users as "slightly less evil" such as telegram vs watsapp. This may also motivate the return to truly open internet ideals…

People need to stop being so lazy and throwing around the word censorship. If a bunch or teenagers come into my coffee shop and start loudly calling each autists and retards I'm going to kick them out. I'm not censoring them by kicking them out.

It seems once a platform gets to a certain size, an entitlement to service regardless of whether it's against the terms of service grows.

"Retard" is considered a slur by some. It doesn't matter if others don't consider it to be. The one making the judgement is the service provider.

Same with Parlour complaining about being kicked off AWS when they violated their terms of service. There's a copy of the letter AWS sent to them that's public [0]

" Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms. It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service. {...} You remove some violent content when contacted by us or others, but not always with urgency. Your CEO recently stated publicly that he doesn’t “feel responsible for any of this, and neither should the platform.”" "

It's just a desire to have freedom from consequences. If they self hosted in Alabama, I'm sure they would have been fine.

[0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-p...

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#737

Post by teekert » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:37 AM UTC

marvin wrote: post #699

ve55 wrote: post #14

And they chose today as the best possible time to enact this ban? Really? I really think they should have put more thought into the timing of this decision; a lot of users are going to be upset and will suddenly start to realize that a single company has a monopoly on their online social life (this may seem like an exaggeration, but it feels quite true to me colloquially, especially if you're a younger US male and/or…

The Discord ban was clearly because the community itself is controversial from a legal point of view. That's why the ban happened today. But I think this is an unwise move. Each community that is censored over something legal but controversial, pushes the creative citizens of the Internet towards building more open platforms. Hope we end up there soon, this constant censorship of communities I might want to have a lo…

And shorting more stock than a total company even has is not controversial? Or using massive shorting to just keep on pushing a stock down? It feels a lot more controversial to me and yet, the hedge fund managers dont't really feel anything. Well apart from the fact that they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar and now they have to pay. But I wonder if their platforms are now being censored. Classic money is power, I'm firmly on the side of WSB here.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#738

Post by betwixthewires » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:38 AM UTC

BelenusMordred wrote: post #16

For all the uneasy feelings I get about the triggerhappy banning by these platforms, there's probably a light at end of the tunnel. Boot enough people and the better alternatives might actually flourish with network effects.

Yep, this is for me very exciting. I like banwaves. They're digging their own graves, they'll go the way of Blockbuster soon, and the internet, public discourse, information availability and dare I say humanity will be better for it. I wish they'd do it faster.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#739

Post by gadders » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:39 AM UTC

Traster wrote: post #714

NotPavlovsDog wrote: post #669

This is really exciting, feels like open standards, independent internet is going to continue getting extreme motivation to expand and establish, with private "freedom of speech" censorship by for-profit platforms. We're going to see more fragmentation, and growth of closed platforms perceived by users as "slightly less evil" such as telegram vs watsapp. This may also motivate the return to truly open internet ideals…

People need to stop being so lazy and throwing around the word censorship. If a bunch or teenagers come into my coffee shop and start loudly calling each autists and retards I'm going to kick them out. I'm not censoring them by kicking them out.

No, it's like a bunch of teenagers came into your coffee shop, and before you could throw them out your coffee shop [in a mall] was permanently closed down by the mall owners.

//Been told I'm posting too fast again by the benevolent left wing moderators on HN so this is what I would have replied:

"From the comment on WSB that was a story on here before it got flagged off the front page:

"We blocked all bad words with a bot, which should be enough, but apparently if someone can say a bad word with weird unicode icelandic characters and someone can screenshot it you don't get to hang out with your friends anymore."

In other words, they told the kids not to swear and enforced it but someone came up with a new swearword that the cafe owner didn't recognise (it's hard to think of an analogy for using weird characters to say a bad word) and so the cafe got shut down. "

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#740

Post by onethought » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:41 AM UTC

betwixthewires wrote: post #734

onethought wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn’t what censorship is. Nor is it a violation of free speech. The government didn’t get involved. Private companies and individuals can do what ever they like with their property, no?

Supposedly, until you criticize the idea of taking their money and giving it to everyone who claims to need it more than them. Arguments like these are all to often made out of convenience, but should be made in good faith and on principle. Do you truly believe in their right to private property?

I don’t get your point at all.

Are you trying to argue some kind of Marxist position in order to show censorship can exist without government involvement.

I’m happy to have a discussion on why capital owners probably stole their wealth at some point. But you need to take me on the journey to how that’s related to censorship